[time-nuts] Non electrical time-nuttery

[J. Forster]

Maybe you could "pump" the pendulum optically, using a beam of light, like
those glass bulb "radiometers" they sell that spin on a sunny window
ledge.

-John

=============



> Like a magnetically coupled escapement
> Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bob Camp <lists at cq.nu>
> Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 12:36:11
> To: Discussion of precise time and frequency
> measurement<time-nuts at febo.com>
> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Non electrical time-nuttery
>
> Hi
>
> How about a rotary pendulum on a quartz fiber spring with some kind of
> trick magnets to drive it  / read it out? Put the pendulum and spring
> inside an evacuated glass envelope to get around the vacuum pump issue.
> The enclosure could be pretty small.
>
> Drive the magnets with a second external clock, and feedback compensate
> it. Let the external clock do all the readout via a very normal gear and
> pointers system. The trick would be getting the feedback loop to work
> purely mechanically with enough gain to "unload" the master pendulum.
>
> Bob
>
>
> On Jan 9, 2010, at 2:07 PM, Lux, Jim (337C) wrote:
>
>> OK.. So we're moving back in electrical technology....
>> But what about mechanical?  Could modern technology get a substantial
>> (>order of magnitude) improvement over 19th century chronometers (either
>> pendulum or balance wheel or whatever).  I know there's some really good
>> quartz fiber torsional spring schemes, but I think they still need
>> electrical means to keep them moving and to read it out.
>>
>> So how good can one do with a mechanical, hydraulic, (or chemical, I
>> suppose) system?  Let's assume it has to have a "direct" readout that is
>> human readable by a causal bystander.  (this starts to sound like the
>> 10,000 year clock or whatever it is..)
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